


Summer’s Child, Men of Winter

by OnlyOneWoman



Series: Thaw [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alliser Thorne is an asshole, Backstory, Character from the books, Cold Weather, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Jon Snow Knows Nothing, Jon Snow Knows Something, Jon Snow catching feelings, M/M, No Spoilers, Past Prostitution, Satin Flowers is so tired and alone, Satin Flowers knows too much about the cruelty of men, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Sick Character, The Night's Watch (ASoIaF), Threats of Rape/Non-Con, the wall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 15:56:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18672859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyOneWoman/pseuds/OnlyOneWoman
Summary: A follow-up to "A Bed of Straw and Silk" where Jon Snow doesn't know much but is willing to learn about Satin's past. (Oh, and my fics are where canon stuff goes to die.)Comments are of course, much appreciated <3





	Summer’s Child, Men of Winter

**Jon**  
He’s made it clear enough, one would think. These are his brothers and as with those of your blood, not necessarily those you’de choose, but an oath is an oath and winter is coming. Executing men for almost killing their brother due to neglect and threats is not just cruel, but an unnecessary loss of manpower. Jon shivers inside as he’s realising how much he’s started to think like a leader and wonders, not for the first time, if father would’ve been proud. He misses him every day.  
  
Satin is up and running again and his way of making himself sweat all day, putting himself to good use more than ever, has something desperate over it. Since his convalesence, the boy from Oldtown has lost his sweet smile and the once so strangely innocent eyes, have darkened with a hard fixing point of mistrust. The guilty ones for putting him through those cold nights have been punished and on the surface, things are back to normal, but when not even Sam’s kindness, Dolorous Edd’s black sense of humor or Ghost’s effort to steal food from Jon’s plate can make Satin smile, Castle Black seems more gloom and dark than ever.  
  
The scorn and crude comments have stopped, at least Jon’s closest friends don’t have anything to report of the kind. The message has gone through: no one wants to have additional night’s duty. Teasing the whore boy isn’t worth it.  
  
Satin himself never mentions the treatment with a word and when Jon tries to ask him about how he’s feeling, the boy is quick to answer in a way that suggests no more questions should be asked because no matter what the full answer will be, it wont be anything nice. As his steward, Satin sleeps in the smaller bed in Jon’s quarters now, as of usual, and in addition to being closer to the fire than in the brother’s quarters, Jon has let the small but comfortable guest bed remain close to it. They have very few guests, after all, and Satin still chatters teeth every night. The cold from those lonely nights without fire or warm blankets, is lingering and no one wants his sweet sleep ruined from that sound, especially since they already have loud snoring, farts and sleep talking to shut out.  
  
So, Satin remains in Jon’s quarters and when Jon ends his day with a cup of mulled wine by his private fire, his now so quiet steward keeps himself impossibly busy with work that really isn’t needed, like sweeping the floor for the umptenht time, polishing Jon’s boots or looking for a minimal tear in his cloak to mend.  
  
One particularly windy night, although not one of the coldest, where the shutters and windows in Castle Black are shivering like leaves and most of the men off night duty have taken the opportunity for an early bed to save the energy for yet another long, tedious day of training, Satin looks both exhausted and tense and he serves Jon the mulled wine with an attempt to a smile that just comes off as heartbreaking.  
  
“Anything else, Lord Commander?”  
  
Jon taked the cup and points at the chair meant for visitors.  
  
“Pull that over here and grab another cup.”  
“Lord Commander?”  
“Just humour me, Satin.”  
  
The boy looks confused but does as told and when he’s done, standing too straight for a boy that soft with the second cup in his hand, Jon gestures at the chair.  
  
“Please, pour yourself a cup and sit down with me.”  
  
  
**Satin**  
Jon Snow is not like the other men. That’s an observation Satin made early on, but never in his wildest dreams, had he imagined the Lord Commander would treat him with anything but reluctant acceptance. It’s been difficult to remember, and know how to deal with, the fact that Jon not only let him sleep in his bed for several nights, but joined him too.  
  
It wasn’t intrusive or uncomfortable in the least, so no, Satin isn’t complaining. In fact, having Jon holding him through those nights when he was going mad from the fever and the nightmares, probably saved his life as much as the warmth and Maester Aemon’s brews did. Now the mulled wine spreads inside Satin’s frozen veins and thaws his blood that seems to keep loosing warmth no matter how many furs he’s wearing.  
  
“How are you feeling these days, Satin?”  
  
Jon’s voice is low, but kind and Satin sips on the wine before answering.  
  
“Can’t complain, Lord Commander. I’m very grateful for all that you’ve done for me.”  
“It is what decent men do.”  
“Perhaps, but we don’t live in a decent world.”  
  
Jon smiles.  
  
“True. We don’t. I know very little about you, Satin Flowers. Will you tell me some about your life before the wall?”  
“What’s there to say, Lord Commander? My mother was a whore, so was I and had I not vowed to not have children, I suppose the family tradition would’ve continued. Not all my customers new their way with herbs.”  
“You had… women too?”  
  
Jon is surprised, he truly is an innocent man in this area, and Satin smiles.  
  
“Men, women, boys and girls. Anyone who could and would pay for a little love.”  
“Anyone you prefered?”  
“The clean ones.”  
  
He scrunches his nose without thinking about it and Jon gives a little grin.  
  
“That’s what all that perfume is about? Keeping the smell of unwashed people away?”  
“Well, I couldn’t carry a mask, could I?”  
“I wouldn’t know, Satin. I’ve never visited a brothel of any sort.”  
“Pity. The employees need every decent customer they could have.”  
“Oh yeah?”  
“Then, of course, after an hour or so, they wouldn’t be so decent anymore.”  
  
Now Jon looks serious again and Satin swallows.  
  
“I’m sorry, Lord Commander, I didn’t mean to…”  
“Jon.”  
“Sorry?”  
“You can call me Jon while when it’s just the two of us. I have noticed that titles can become clumsy in conversation. And don’t appologise for sharing things. I was the one asking.”  
“Thank you… Jon. Is there anything else you’d like to know about my whoring days?”  
“Who’s Varon?”  
  
  
**Jon**  
The pain is well-hidden, but the moment he gets asked the question, Satin’s smile vanishes again and his sweet face suddenly looks much older. He’s young, only a couple of years younger than Jon and the gaze in his blue eyes doesn’t suit the smooth skin and ample lips. It’s weary and has seen too much. Jon forces himself to meet it.  
  
“You’ve been speaking to him… in your sleep. Who is he?”  
  
The fragile man looks at his cup, then into the fire.  
  
“He was… a man I knew back in Oldtown. I was sent to him, as a gift.”  
“You were his slave?”  
“No, I was his hired company, for a long time. Didn’t like him that much at first.”  
  
Satin scrunches his nose in a way that looks nothing but adorable and Jon wonders, not for the first time, how anyone could think that the Night’s Watch was a suitable place for this man. Not that he’s not proven his worth here, but… yes, while it feels wrong to form the thought even in silence, he’s just too pretty for this place.  
  
He sighs.  
  
“He was good to me, but he prefered his boys young and inevitably, he found a younger one. I was fifteen and scared out my wits for what would happen.”  
  
Now he looks up, old and serious again, almost forgiving, as if he was talking to a child and Jon comes to think of old Nan. Of Ygritte.  
  
Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of fear?  
  
You know nothing, Jon Snow.  
  
Satin Flowers knows too much and while he’s covered in the same black woll and ragged fur as his brothers, he still has this lingering scent of summer and airy wine, the promise of something light and flowy in his name.  
  
_Satin._ Rustling fabrics from noble women’s dresses. Goldenwhite summer’s wine, deceitfully sweet on the tongue. Then, the wine cup was empty, no more silky fabrics and the door shut. His road somehow leading here, where the only flowers were the dried ones in Maester Aemon’s medical box.  
  
The gaze is steady now.  
  
“I do not need sympathy.”  
“It’s not mine to give you, Satin. The past is the past and we all do what we have to, in order to survive.”  
  
The man shivers again and Jon is reminded of the hour.  
  
“We should get some sleep. You look very tired and I’ve kept you from your sleep for too long.”  
“I’m a light sleeper.”  
  
The self-ironic little smile reminds him. Jon raises from his chair, not looking at the man.  
  
“I know you suffer from nightmares, brother. If you need it, there’s room in my bed. For _sleeping_.”  
  
The emphasy on the last word makes Satin laugh and it’s like a rippling rivulet, light and musical, too happy for this place but his deep blue eyes, still too innocent for his past, present and future, are veiled and heavy.  
  
“You truly are an innocent man, Jon Snow.”  
  
_No_ , Jon thinks as the pretty, former whore removes his dagger, belt and boots. _You may be a whore and some of our brothers have treated you like the dirt under their boots, but you’re the only one of us, apart from Sam, who still has an honest, innocent smile to give._  
  
  
**Satin**  
The shirt of rough linen is a little too big for him after the convalecense and Satin lays down in the bed, unfcomfortably aware of the difference in size between his own body and the Lord Commander’s broader frame. He grew up at Winterfell with a stick in hand since he was little more than a small child, by time replacing it with heavier practice swords and finally, real ones. The only sticks Satin has experienced, are the ends of those used to beat the unruly spawns of whore’s, and said spawns mothers. Oh, and those made of wax, not for candles but for… other purposes.  
  
He shivers again and the next moment, the Lord Commander spreads his cloak over him and the bed shifts. The room is dark now, save for the fire, and for that, Satin is grateful. The body next to him is warm and when it curls arund him, tentatively, he welcomes it. It doesn’t reek, there’s a scent of sweat, soap and leather, musky and rough, but the Lord Commander is raised properly, bastard or not. Not the kind of man who, in lack of women, will force his steward down and spread his cheeks.  
  
“Satin?”  
“Yes, mylord?”  
“Jon. Please?”  
“Jon…”  
“I am not trying to take advantage over you, Satin.”  
“I know, myl… Jon.”  
“Do you?”  
  
He was so young when he learned the nature of men. Men from Braavos, from King’s Landing, Dorne, Highgarden and on few, thankfully rare occasions, the wild beasts from Iron Islands or Essos. They were all, to the core, so alike, Satin thinks. The fair and the dark ones, the common soldiers and the commanders, the highborns and the peasents. No human being, maybe apart from the insane or imbecil, treats boy whores as anything more than holes for sweet release.  
  
_Better they beat us than their wives and children,_ one of the girls at the brothel, Ellä, used to say. She had a scar from one of her regulars and she wore it like a battle injury, head still raised high. It was said she’d not shared a tear since her fifth nameday.  
  
Satin had not been nearly as strong and his tears are still warm and flowing. He should know better, the Night’s Watch has no use for weeping boys, anymore than Oldtown’s brothels had. Tears will freeze to ice up here and who’s gonna keep watch with frozen eyes? When winter is coming and the White Walkers start marching, there’s no time for tears, but right now, in the arms of his Lord Commander, Satin Flowers with the sunny smile, is crying.  
  
  
**Jon**  
It takes a long time until the fragile man in his arms stops crying and as Jon strokes the now almost lax shoulders, he wonders how long it’s been since Satin shed a tear. If he’s done it in another man’s arms, like this? For some reason, the thought of another man comforting _his_ steward like this, makes Jon angry.  
  
All those men – and women – who only used this beautiful man for their own needs and for that, he’s been sentenced to the Night’s Watch. It’s not fair, but since when is life fair? At least men wont force themselves onto him up here, not as long as Jon is in command, at least. He almost slaps himself when he realises what he’s thinking. The very reason why Satin is sharing his bed at all, is due to men trying exactly that the moment their Lord Commander was away. And noble guests and priests have all thrown disapproving looks at the pretty, lithe steward more than once, while Satin himself has risen above the disdain every time, showing nothing but respect and dignity, not once bringing dishonor to the Night’s Watch.  
  
This whore is one of the best among them and there’s no shame in giving him some comfort. Everyone cries. Maybe not Alliser Thorne or the rapists and murderers, but the rest of them. They’re men, they have souls, despite being stuck here on the boarder to the realm of the dead. Satin is alive and breathing, he’s soft and warm, lips slightly parted and… And Jon shouldn’t think about his steward, his _brother_ , like this.  
  
But he’s not… hasn’t in such a long time and that mouth… The sweet breath, the long curls and vulnerable little dimple between his collar bones… The musical voice, warm scent and thick eyelashes.  
  
The night is dark and full of terrors, winter’s coming and Jon Snow knows nothing about many things, but when he leans close to kiss those warm lips, he’s tasting the sweetness of summer and the winter, suddenly, no longer seems so cold or neverending.


End file.
